News

Spring semester classes don’t begin until Jan. 20 but 39 Hamilton students are back on campus a week early to take part in two Levitt Center programs. Twenty-six students are participating in the fourth Levitt Leadership Institute and 13 are involved in the Social Innovation Fellow Program.

Three Hamilton students have been selected to attend the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) that will take place in March 6-8 at the University of Miami, Florida. Ryan Ong  ’16, Sharif Shrestha ’17 and Jose Vazquez ’15  will attend CGI U along with Tsion Tsefaye ’16 who was chosen in November.

The Class of 2018’s Leadership Experience And Preparation (LEAP) program’s 12th and final meeting took place on Nov. 16. Sixteen Hamilton first-year students along with four LEAP mentors, gathered in a KJ classroom to escape the cold, Clinton November day, and discuss what goes into making an effective leader.

Officials at the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) have recently selected Tsion Tesfaye ’16 to attend their annual meeting in recognition of her innovative project Youth for Ethiopia. It will take place in Miami in March.

Associate Professor of Anthropology Chaise LaDousa published an article, “Subject to Address in a Digital Literacy Initiative: Neoliberal Agency and the Promises and Predicaments of Participation,” in the current issue of the journal Signs and Society.

The Levitt Center on Nov. 10 hosted Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, a world-renowned oncologist, scientist, and writer, who gave a lecture on the history of cancer research and its most recent strides.

The Levitt Center hosted its second StartupExperience, an intensive two-day workshop for students interested in social and commercial entrepreneurship on Nov. 8 and 9.  Participants worked in teams to learn about problem identification, technology trends, design thinking, business model innovation, customer development and pitching, and in the process gained the confidence to create a viable start-up.

Robert Blecker, professor of law at New York Law School, and Sarah Turberville, senior counsel at The Constitution Project, traveled to the Hill on Nov. 6 for a panel discussion of perspectives on capital punishment in the U.S. The Levitt Center event was moderated by Hamilton’s Frank Anechiarico, the Maynard-Knox Professor of Government and Law.

Arthur Levitt Jr., and Lauri Levitt Friedland ’81 visited campus on Friday, Oct. 31 and met with 15 Hamilton students.  The students discussed their work as Levitt Research Fellows, Social Innovation Fellows and Public Service Interns, as well as their experiences with Project SHINE, the Innovation Roundtable, the Levitt Leadership Institute and the Levitt Social Innovation Team.

Whether tight on cash or short on time, many us understand the concept of scarcity. Although scarcity is often analyzed through the lens of economics, Sendhil Mullainathan, professor of economics at Harvard University, has added the lens of psychology to his work. Co-author of Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, he explained the major concepts of his work to an overflowing Chapel audience on Oct. 23.